Pfhorrest wrote:the police said that they were glad to have gotten to meet "one of the good people" of their community, which gave me the impression that their day-to-day run-ins must be with people who are a lot more unpleasant to deal with than someone just stressed as hell about their job.

Or that they judge people as being equivocally good or bad without any nuance.

Or sometimes it's just nice to show up to a call like that and find that somebody isn't beating the hell out of somebody else... or it might have been because he answered the door and didn't immediately throw something or start screaming at them... Domestic abuse cases absolutely suck most of the time, regardless of who is doing what; and much of the time they're catching hell from both the victim and the abuser.

In all seriousness, for the cops who respond to those sorts of calls, having someone merely answer the door and explain that they're stressed can be the highlight of their day.

uhhh no i have seen cops answer the calls for black people who are Just Having A Stressful Day and i have seen them respond with violence to people who were in no way violent to them.

because they look at a black person in emotional crisis and assume they're a threat, without giving the opportunity to prove otherwise. whereas they look at white/many nonblack people and give them the space to talk and explain. i have personally witnessed cops answer the door, see a black person looking distressed and put their hands on their guns and address them aggressively EVEN WHEN the person opens with "i'm sorry officer i just ____" and the like.

idk why y'all are falling over yourselves to excuse the culture of violence that happens with police. yes, #notallcops or whatever but do you seriously think the difference is that poor people/black people/etc are just worse people? there's an ingrained culture of assuming that if you're in certain neighborhoods, if the people who answer the door are black, etc, the cops should be on the defensive, and they act accordingly, and it escalates situations that have zero need for escalation.

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

For my part I'm not trying to excuse anything. I'm of a generally anti-authoritarian bent and used to get pulled over almost every night just so the same goddamn cops could run my license and see if I had any warrants on me yet (even though I never did), which would probably get called a DWB if I was black. I was surprised by how non-confrontational that interaction I related last page went, seriously taken aback by it because I assumed it was going to go much worse until it didn't. But I can understand how people whose job involves frequent hostile interactions would tend to get preemptively hostile in response to it. Not that that excuses anything, but it seems a worthwhile thought when brainstorming a practical solution to the problem, like people have been here. Cops frequently have hostile interactions as a normal and expected part of their jobs, and that would tend to make anybody more hostile in response, so how can we make sure that the people entrusted with deadly force don't end up responding like that, but better than just anybody would?

Pfhorrest wrote:Cops frequently have hostile interactions as a normal and expected part of their jobs, and that would tend to make anybody more hostile in response, so how can we make sure that the people entrusted with deadly force don't end up responding like that, but better than just anybody would?

That doesn't really explain it though as other Western countries don't generally have your problem. Either our cops don't frequently have hostile interactions, or they do but our recruitment or training process keeps them from becoming jaded.

At this point it is a chicken and egg thing: Your cops go into encounters in a hostile and defensive fashion, and the poor and minorities are fearful and defensive in return, but, as I've said before, the cops are the professionals here - the ones who theoretically volunteered for this job in order to serve society - so they are the ones that have to break this cycle of violence and mistrust.

There are definitely less killings in many western countries. My gut attributes this to the gun culture in the US, but someone correct if other correlations have been made.

In terms of overall police brutality though, that tends to be a problem anywhere you give people the authority to use force over others. I'm not sure how the numbers actually compare. I mean there's a march against police brutality every year in here in Montreal (which inevitably ends after the marchers end up torching some cars or breaking windows =/).

The core of the problem is that police assume that a suspect is armed until proven otherwise.

All other pieces are irrelevant. Is there racism involved? Of course it is, when the police are less likely to be convinced that the suspect is not armed simply because dark skin is the perfect camouflage for a shiny chrome-plated handgun /snark. But the problem is still that the police assume the person is armed until proven unarmed.

So yes, it's the guns. Police shootings, school massacres, muggings at gunpoint, mothers forced to watch as their own babies descend into the earth, immigrants fleeing from war torn countries shielding their wives with their bodies only for a bullet to be deflected off of the radius in their own forearm and into their wife's chest, that's just the small price for the freedom of being able to buy a gun secondhand without so much as a background check.

the so-called "gun show loophole" dangerous? According to this study appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the answer is yes, if only modestly.

Given the limited political and financial capital, it is prudent to focus resources on changes that are the most effective, instead of least. If anything, forcing the government to fund scientists for the study of guns would be the most beneficial. We are at the cigarette Maker's destroy the evidence stage. Need to get more funding out there, so we know what works.

Pfhorrest wrote:Cops frequently have hostile interactions as a normal and expected part of their jobs, and that would tend to make anybody more hostile in response, so how can we make sure that the people entrusted with deadly force don't end up responding like that, but better than just anybody would?

That doesn't really explain it though as other Western countries don't generally have your problem. Either our cops don't frequently have hostile interactions, or they do but our recruitment or training process keeps them from becoming jaded.

I thought it was clear that I was tacitly assuming the latter by asking that question (or rather, relaying my impression that previous discussion in this thread tacitly assumed the latter by discussing that question).

CorruptUser wrote:The core of the problem is that police assume that a suspect is armed until proven otherwise.

All other pieces are irrelevant. Is there racism involved? Of course it is, when the police are less likely to be convinced that the suspect is not armed simply because dark skin is the perfect camouflage for a shiny chrome-plated handgun /snark. But the problem is still that the police assume the person is armed until proven unarmed.

So yes, it's the guns. Police shootings, school massacres, muggings at gunpoint, mothers forced to watch as their own babies descend into the earth, immigrants fleeing from war torn countries shielding their wives with their bodies only for a bullet to be deflected off of the radius in their own forearm and into their wife's chest, that's just the small price for the freedom of being able to buy a gun secondhand without so much as a background check.

Deputy Cameron Brewer repeatedly shouts "get down on the ground" before firing. Both the officer and victim are black.

Mr Thomas' family say he suffered from depression after his children died.

(...)

Houston Police Department said in a statement last week that Mr Thomas was found "walking in the middle of the intersection" of a busy road in the city.

Deputy Brewer noticed him with "his pants around his ankles, talking to himself and hitting vehicles as they passed by".

"Thomas then struck a white vehicle, and the driver exited and engaged in a physical altercation with the suspect," Houston police said.

The Harris County Sheriff's deputy saw the fracas and stopped his car to intervene.

"Fearing for his safety, the deputy discharged his duty weapon, striking Thomas once in the chest," said Houston police, which is leading the investigation.

So, a man who is clearly unarmed, and physically prevented from suddenly rushing the officers (or indeed anyone), seems to be having a mental breakdown of some sort. Yup, I can't see a way out of that situation without shooting him dead.

Don't those explode if they rupture, as proven in the documentary "Jaws"? Because all I'm thinking of is a paramedic whacking people over the head with a tank, and I can't imagine that's safe for anyone.

if oxygen tanks exploded when used to whack people upside the head there'd be way more ambulances going up in flames in dc every day, the entire city is made out of potholes and medics drive like we're in the fast and the furious those things are getting jostled and banged about constantly

oxygen tanks do explode but i wouldn't look to jaws as a barometer of realism

You want to know the future, love? Then wait:I'll answer your impatient questions. Still --They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

natraj wrote:if oxygen tanks exploded when used to whack people upside the head there'd be way more ambulances going up in flames in dc every day, the entire city is made out of potholes and medics drive like we're in the fast and the furious those things are getting jostled and banged about constantly

oxygen tanks do explode but i wouldn't look to jaws as a barometer of realism

I looked for video of what happens. I found some. Bad language is included.

CorruptUser wrote:...fill the police force with people who aren't naturally hostile to black people, such as other black people?

This is already the case in Baltimore(well over half the force and leadership), and Baltimore PD has a lot of problems. You could, I suppose, argue that it's not intrinsically racist thanks to the police force makeup...but ultimately, if it's a bunch of cops beating the shit out of unarmed people, does it really matter? It's still fucked up.

CorruptUser wrote:So yes, it's the guns. Police shootings, school massacres, muggings at gunpoint, mothers forced to watch as their own babies descend into the earth, immigrants fleeing from war torn countries shielding their wives with their bodies only for a bullet to be deflected off of the radius in their own forearm and into their wife's chest, that's just the small price for the freedom of being able to buy a gun secondhand without so much as a background check.

I dunno. In at least some of these cases, there's very clearly no actual gun. I mean, look at the drop gun thing I posted earlier. They're carrying drop guns specifically in case of shooting people who don't have a gun.

And MD has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, so it ain't that.

Plenty of police brutality happens when it is blindingly obvious that there is no gun there.

natraj wrote:if oxygen tanks exploded when used to whack people upside the head there'd be way more ambulances going up in flames in dc every day, the entire city is made out of potholes and medics drive like we're in the fast and the furious those things are getting jostled and banged about constantly

oxygen tanks do explode but i wouldn't look to jaws as a barometer of realism

This is truth, yeah. You can, in theory, knock the valve off, but I've seen a lot of tanks mistreated, and I've never seen a tank rupture. I'm sure you can get it to happen if you work at it, but paramedics with oxygen tanks are probably not half the danger cops are.

Well, it's shiny. In combat situations, the brain shuts down. The frontal lobe along with higher thought ceases to function, and it's all the hindbrain, and it's all about survival without any ability to assess new information. At this point the only thought a person has is any training they've had, and the training that the police have is "perp with gun, SHOOTSHOOTSHOOT!" The police see a person with any object, it's shiny it must be a gun, or it's black it must be a gun, or he's putting his hands down OHSHITHESREACHINGFORHISGUN.

In short, we should test officers for how well they can think in combat situations, train them to not assume everything is a gun, or maybe only let them carry stunguns.

Edit: Upon reflection, that's still too kind. Military folks accept surrender from folks with actual guns all the time, in combat situations, without losing their shit and emptying magazines everywhere.

Rewatch the video of the Mesa Arizona police killing the terrified white guy.

Police shoot unarmed black people more often because they interact with black people more often and thus end up in fight or flight mode with black people more often. You could argue that part of it is because due to unconscious biases (aka a form of racism) being in a confrontation with a black person is more likely to trigger fight or flight than with a white person, but once fight or flight is triggered...

Rewatch the video of the Mesa Arizona police killing the terrified white guy.

Police shoot unarmed black people more often because they interact with black people more often and thus end up in fight or flight mode with black people more often. You could argue that part of it is because due to unconscious biases (aka a form of racism) being in a confrontation with a black person is more likely to trigger fight or flight than with a white person, but once fight or flight is triggered...

There are dozens of cases of police calmly walking up to a white man armed with an actual gun and arresting them without firing a shot. Somehow the same doesn't happen with black people. I don't give a shit whether their fight or flight instinct is triggered or inoperative or they roll a die to decide if they want to murder someone. At some point, they're able not to do this to white people and consistently do this to black people. There is nothing unavoidable about this.

Zohar wrote:There are dozens of cases of police calmly walking up to a white man armed with an actual gun and arresting them without firing a shot. Somehow the same doesn't happen with black people. I don't give a shit whether their fight or flight instinct is triggered or inoperative or they roll a die to decide if they want to murder someone. At some point, they're able not to do this to white people and consistently do this to black people. There is nothing unavoidable about this.

Please show some numbers for this. The numbers that were looked at back in the thread were showing that once the interaction with the police occurred, the rate of death was similar. It was the rate of interaction which was grossly skewed when it came to black vs white.